Law-enforcers detained ex-Deputy Chief Prosecutor of Georgia Davit Chkhatarashvili on charges of exceeding his authority. He was the First Deputy of Zurab Adeishvili, when the latter was the Minister of Justice. We spoke with expert Mamuka Areshidze about this issue.
M.A. – I welcome the Davit Chkhatarashvili’s detention because with his help Zurab Adeishvili committed illegal actions. I can say nothing about the charges on which he was detained but he knew everything that was being done in the Prosecutor’s

Office. He even headed up illegal arrests of innocent people and the process of forcefully depriving them of their property. More than one victim said that they couldn’t stand Chkhatarashvili’s pressure and “donated” their property to the state. With his help the Prosecutor’s Office may decipher the scheme through which people were deprived of their property, expose the culprits and make them accountable. I think he’ll have to answer quite serious questions. Q. – Do you think it’s the beginning of the former or acting prosecutors’ detainment process? A. – A lot of work is ahead. But there is no doubt that everybody who committed crimes should be held answerable, including the prosecutors.Q. – Staff changes took place at the Prosecutor’s Office. Do you think this process is being fairly realized? A. – Those people who think that they were unfairly treated by these functionaries feel it very keenly. This kind of staff is already being dismissed. The process will presumably continue. They are mostly replaced by people who worked in different financial systems. P.S. The charges on which Chkhatarashvili was detained pertain to scandalous video tapes of inmates’ torture in September 2012, showing the illegal activity of Adeishvili and Deputy Chief Prosecutor Chkhatarashvili. According to the investigation, they forced several inmates to disseminate false information, but facts about the beating and insulting of prisoners were revealed in time.

Georgian detainees Maia Otinashvili and Akaki Dotiashvili are freed from the Tskhinvali prison. They had been accused of illegally crossing a so-called the borderline into the occupied Tskhinvali region.

On the 28th of October, presidential elections will be held in Georgia. The last elections in October 2013 resulted in a victory for Giorgi Margvelashvili, a candidate of the Georgian Dream (the ruling party).